1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to computer network systems, and more particularly, to a system and method for disaster recovery of a specific stand-alone computing appliance or an individual computing appliance configured for operation in a cluster.
2. Background Information
Network administrators are in a constant battle to keep the technology they manage running smoothly. Areas of particular challenge are disaster recovery, cluster management and system upgrades. Despite rapid improvements in computing power, storage technology and network bandwidth, these activities still prove a challenge to network administrators.
Disaster recovery encompasses restoring the operational state and any lost data of the system brought down by the disaster. Disasters can range from simple mis-configurations causing a single system to malfunction to multiple system failures due to a natural or man-made disaster. On either end of the spectrum the faster these mission critical systems can be brought back to their previous operational state the better. Unfortunately, the current state of technology typically requires that a network administrator spend hours re-installing software and resetting configurations to get systems back online after a disaster.
There has also been an increase in the use of clustered and/or redundant systems. Clustered systems and redundant systems add additional complexity to the disaster recovery dilemma. If clustered systems are properly designed and implemented, they tend to keep mission critical services online even if one or more nodes in the cluster should fail. This is important because re-installation and re-configuration of the failed node typically is difficult and time consuming.
In addition, systems such as clustered or redundant systems present the additional danger that mission critical service could be impacted if the replacement node is not configured correctly before it is inserted in the system. Therefore, proper recovery of a clustered system's configuration is critical.
Finally, the current security environment creates a nearly constant need to patch or upgrade systems. Device manufactures are under constant pressure to improve security and performance. Sometimes these pressures require major changes to the operating software. Unfortunately for the already stressed network administrator, major operating software changes are bound to mean significant configuration changes. In the current environment, network administrators are typically left poring through manuals to figure out how to ensure the operational state of their networks are maintained through the upgrade process.